Abstract [en]

This thesis is comprised of an investigation of equipment effectiveness at the company Produce AB (fictitious name) at two machine cells, Alfa, which consists of four millers and Beta, which consists of four lathes. The company is a subcontractor of metal products to three different business areas and consists today of 100 employees. By measuring the actual time the machinery process goods for the customer the company have identified low machine utility as a problem in the production. With this investigation, they therefore want to identify the causes of this problem in order to improve the business and become more competitive. The approach for this investigation is based on the methodology within Six Sigma where the DMAIC model has been used. Quantitative data collection occurred during ten days with the use of an operator template, where duration and cause of machine downtime was noted. Qualitatively, unstructured, semi-structured and fully structured interviews have been used to analyze the root causes for machine downtime that was identified following the quantitative data collection. The main part of the theoretical framework for this thesis includes total productive maintenance and overall equipment efficiency, which was used to map and calculate the current state of the equipment efficiency. Other theoretical frameworks are Lean, material- and production planning, resource utility and variations. These theories were used to analyze the result and give suggestions for improvement. The calculated equipment efficiency varies between both the cells and the machines within the cells. In the Alfa-cell, values vary between 52 and 80 per cent and in the Beta-cell between 37 and 57 per cent. The significant causes for machine downtime were identified as lack of personnel, long set-up times, machinery waiting for operators, differences in processing time between cycles and machine breakdowns. From this, suggestions for improvement were developed. The suggestions included employment of addition personnel, reduction of set-up times, introduction of an Andon-system and elimination of processing time differences. In general, the authors of this thesis can see that the company has a will to improve, but the work with improvements has been suffering since the production is behind, compared to what the customer demands. A lack of resources and short term-thinking are therefore considered two of the things that most affect the company's possibilities to maintain a competitive business.